Over the past few years the rich have taken a bit of a cinematic kicking. It makes sense considering all the stuff that’s been in the news, but genre films and TV shows such as Ready Or Not, You’re Next, Mike Flanagan’s Fall Of The House Of Usher and many others really have lined up to deliver a multitude of awful ends to various blue bloods and fat cats. Seemingly joining the queue is How To Make A Killing, a Glen Powell-led comedy that takes a loose cue from Kind Hearts And Coronets and sees its lead attempt to join the ranks of the financial elite by taking the rather extreme route of killing them.
However, while we have yet another movie that takes aim at the rich, it also freely admits that we’d also like to be them, even if it means that getting there could result in our very soul evaporating into the ether, but even with the weapons grade charm of Powell at hand, can Emily The Criminal director John Patton Ford find that balance between homicide and hilarity?
Meet Becket Redfellow, a man whose mother was outed from the wealthy Redfellow family by patriarch Whitelaw when she got pregnant and decided to keep the child. Cut off from the family fortune, but apparently still in the will, Mary Redfellow put the work in and raised little Becket as a single mother before illness tragically took her life, but while she faded away, she tells her son that he should fight for the life he “deserves” to have. Years later, Becket is working as a suit salesman and bumps into Julia Steinway, an affluent young woman he’s had feelings for ever since childhood, and their meeting starts off a chain reaction that not only sees him demoted, but has him cook up an extreme plan.
As he’s still technically part the Redfellow inheritance, that means if the other, seven members of the family were to suddenly stop living, he would be the one to reap the benefits, so he tentatively works out a plot to target the youngest of the brood – the egotistical and brattish Taylor. However, when Becket manages to be successful more out of luck that judgement, he starts to cast a murderous eye over the remaining members of his bloodline. However, in the wake of Taylor’s death, numerous things start to fall into place – after speaking to his victim’s father, Warren, Becket soon finds himself taken under his uncle’s wing and gets a job at his financial investment firm. Later, when figuring out how to bag his next target, untalented artist Noah, Becket finds himself drawn to his cousin’s girlfriend, Ruth. However while his life seems to be getting better with every death, Julia suddenly pops out of the woodwork to make some demands as it seems that her storybook life seems to be on the skids. Common sense suggests that Becket needs to pump the brakes on his murderous quest, but now that he’s so close to his “birthright”, can he actually afford to stop?
There’s a multitude of things to enjoy about How To Make A Killing, not least that we get another outing for Glen Powell who really seems to be cornering the market on charismatic leads who find themselves in a sweaty panic when they embark on some outlandish outing. In fact, in many ways, Powell is the film as the numerous moral dilemmas he has to navigate hit as fast as he himself creates them. And yet, for all of its good points, that’s a nagging issue that he and director John Patton Ford doesn’t actually know what kind of movie they’re supposed to be making. For a black comedy about murder, the movie is surprisingly pretty middle of the road as it has no real intrest about dealing with the psychical ramifications of the killer deeds it’s hero does. Almost every single death occurs off screen, giving the various ticking off of Becket’s grim list a clean, almost non-eventful send-off that seems to be working overtime to not paint the guy as some callous serial killer. There are no visible bodies, barely any aftermath and most strange of all all, practically no violence as Powell’s character bumps people off in the most socially acceptable manners you could possibly think off. However, while the filmmakers ate obviously trying to make a classy, numerous think-piece about the lengths people will go to yo be rich, How To Make A Killing crucially forgets to be genuinely funny, skipping out on any genuine belly laughs in order to keep that civility. It’s a nice thought, but it ends up making the film feel strangely underwritten, like there was some broader, farcical scenes committed during a rewrite or something and the result is a movie with potentially a lot of teeth that ultimately lacks any bite.
On the other hand, you don’t amass a cast such as this and end up with a film that’s unwatchable. Powell has been on a run of late as vulnerable nice guys caught up in outlandish situations such as Hit Man, Chad Powers and The Running Man and Becket Redfellow is the latest offering for him to show off his Bat Symbol-shaped dimples whenever he smiles. To be fair, there’s something endearingly Tom Cruise-ish about his rising star as the onslaught of charm is frequently interspersed with flop-sweat panic that succeeds in making this multiple murderer someone to root for. Elsewhere, Margaret Qualley is slinky and conniving, Jessica Henwick is impossibly endearing and a raft of actors that range from a leathery Ed Harris, to a coiffed Topher Grace. However, there’s once again a sense that some of the characters have all wandered in from different movies, with some feeling they’ve survived some previous, wackier draft while the rest of the film leveled out. Both Qualley and Grace feel like refugees from a discarded screenplay by the Coen Brothers, while others feel either far more restrained or simply just underwritten and while it doesn’t effect the enjoyment of the story too much, it’s tough to see it as much more than a minor diversion.
Ultimately, How To Make A Killing ends up being neither as thought provoking or funny as it obviously thinks it is mostly because it’s scrabbling for a cohesive tone. Becket’s smug confession/narration doesn’t quite fit with the presentation of its lead as a nervous, psuedo-innocent opportunist and the ending seems to be shooting for something for an after-movie conversation piece akin to David Fincher’s Gone Girl, but it can’t quite strike that same chord tragic irony to really make its muddled point really kill.
A perfectly acceptable comedy thriller is rendered somewhat forgettable by the fact that it’s a black comedy that isn’t either cruel or funny enough to stand out. However, if you can vibe with its matter of fact tone, there’s a clutch of fun performances to embrace; but that’s not enough to stop How To Make A Killing from being something of a blunt instrument when more of an edge would be far more fun.
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